PROLOGUE.

WE live in an age of universal inquiry, ergo of universal scepticism. The prophecies of the
poet, the dreams of the philosopher and scientist, are being daily
realized—things formerly considered mere fairy-tales have become facts—yet, in
spite of the marvels of learning and science that are hourly accomplished among
us, the attitude of mankind is one of disbelief. “There is no God!” cries one
theorist; “or if there be one, I can obtain no proof of His
exist-
existence
page: 2 ence!” “There is no Creator!” exclaims
another. “The Universe is simply a rushing together of atoms.” “There can be no
Immortality,” asserts a third. “We are but dust, and to dust we shall return.”
“What is called by idealists the SOUL,” argues another, “is simply the vital
principle composed of heat and air, which escapes from the body at death, and
mingles again with its native element. A candle when lit emits flame; blow out
the light, the flame vanishes—where? Would it not be madness to assert the flame
immortal? Yet the soul, or, vital principle of human existence, is no more than
the flame of a candle.”

If you propound to these theorists the eternal question WHY?—why is the world in
existence?—why is there a universe? why do we live? why do we think and plan?
why do we perish at the last?—their grandiose reply is, “Because of the Law of
Universal Necessity.” They
page: 3 cannot explain this
mysterious Law to themselves, nor can they probe deep enough to find the answer
to a still more tremendous WHY—namely, Why is there a Law of
Universal Necessity?—but they are satisfied with the result of their reasonings,
if not wholly, yet in part, and seldom try to search beyond that great vague
vast Necessity, lest their finite brains should reel into madness worse than
death. Recognising, therefore, that in this cultivated age a wall of scepticism
and cynicism is gradually being built up by intellectual thinkers of every
nation against all that treats of the Supernatural and Unseen, I am aware that
my narration of the events I have recently experienced will be read with
incredulity. At a time when the great empire of the Christian Religion is being
assailed or politely ignored by governments and public speakers and teachers, I
realize to the fullest extent how daring is any attempt
page: 4 to prove, even by a plain history of strange
occurrences happening to one's self, the actual existence of the Supernatural
around us; and the absolute certainty of a future state of being, after the
passage through that brief soul-torpor in which the body perishes, known to us
as Death.

In the present narration, which I have purposely called a “romance,” I do not
expect to be believed, as I can only relate what I myself have experienced. I
know that men and women of to-day must have proofs, or what they are willing to
accept as proofs, before they will credit anything that purports to be of a
spiritual tendency;—something startling—some miracle of a stupendous nature,
such as according to prophecy they are all unfit to receive. Few will admit the
subtle influence and incontestible, though mysterious, authority exercised upon
their lives by higher intelligences than their own—intelligences unseen,
unknown, but felt.
page: 5 Yes!
felt by the most careless, the most cynical; in the
uncomfortable prescience of danger, the inner foreboding of guilt—the moral and
mental torture endured by those who fight a protracted battle to gain the hardly
won victory in themselves of right over wrong—in the thousand and one sudden
appeals made without warning to that compass of a man's life, Conscience—and in
those brilliant and startling impulses of generosity, bravery, and
self-sacrifice which carry us on, heedless of consequences, to the performance
of great and noble deeds, whose fame makes the whole world one resounding echo
of glory—deeds that we wonder at ourselves even in the performance of them—acts
of heroism in which mere life goes for nothing, and the Soul for a
brief space is pre-eminent, obeying blindly the guiding influence of a
something akin to itself, yet higher in the realms
of Thought. There are no proofs as to why such things
should
page: 6 be; but that they are,
is indubitable. The miracles of to-day are silent ones, and are worked in the
heart and mind of man alone. Unbelief is nearly supreme in the world to-day.
Were an angel to descend from heaven in the middle of Trafalgar Square, the
crowd would think he had got himself up on pulleys and wires, and would try to
discover his apparatus. Were he, in wrath, to cast destruction upon them, and
with fire blazing from his wings, slay a thousand of them with the mere shaking
of a pinion, those who were left alive would either say that a tremendous
dynamite explosion had occurred, or that Trafalgar Square was built on an
extinct volcano which had suddenly broken out into frightful activity. Anything
rather than believe in angels—the nineteenth century protests against the
possibility of their existence. It sees no miracles—it pooh-poohs the very
enthusiasm that might work them.

page: 7

“Give a positive sign,” it says; “prove clearly that what you say is true, and I,
in spite of my Progress and Atom Theory, will believe.” The answer to such a
request was spoken eighteen hundred years and more ago. “A faithless and
perverse generation asketh for a sign, and no sign shall be given unto
them.”

Were I now to assert that a sign had been given to me—to me, as one
out of the thousands who demand it—such daring assurance on my part would meet
with the most strenuous opposition from all who peruse the following pages; each
person who reads having his own ideas on all subjects, and naturally considering
them to be the best if not the only ideas worth anything. Therefore
I wish it to be plainly understood that in this book I personally advocate no
theory of either religion or philosophy; nor do I hold myself answerable for the
opinions expressed by any of my characters. My
page: 8
aim throughout is to let facts speak for themselves. If they seem strange,
unreal, even impossible, I can only say that it is open to others to follow, if
so inclined, the same course which I pursued, and which obtained for me the
remarkable experience I am about to relate.